Alaska Railroad Sounds

My photos page gave you the sights of the ARR. This section will give you the sounds of the ARR. I know what you're thinking! What about the smells of the ARR? Well, I'm working on that one... In the meantime, here is a collection of sounds of the greatest railroad in the world. They are in .WAV format, but I can supply them to you in other formats upon request. Enjoy!

Defect Detector Sounds

(see the caboose page for more information on defect detectors)

These detector recordings are from a Type "B" Detector, but do not include the total axle count after passing.

detect.wav(116K)
"Alaska Railroad, milepost 225.7, no defects, temperature 7, out"

cold.wav(125K)
"Alaska Railroad, milepost 225.7, no defects, temperature minus 23, out"

Thanks to Robert Krol for providing these defect detector recordings.

Operations Sounds

3009.wav (116K)
No. 3009's horn

all-aboard.wav(125K)
ARR Conductor saying, "All aboard"

4005-engine.wav(125K)
Five feet away from SD70MAC no. 4005's prime mover (Fairbanks Depot 6/27/00)

4005-whistle.wav(125K)
SD70MAC no. 4005's horn and bell (Talkeetna Depot 6/29/00)

rdc.wav(125K)
RDC no. 701's horn (Talkeetna Section House 6/29/00)

711.wav(860K)
RDC no. 711's engine (Anchorage depot 8/27/05)

Sounds from Stewart Sterling

Stewart Sterling recorded these Alaska Railroad sounds back in 1981-1982. Of these sounds, Stewart says, "I couldn't help recording the ARR sounds to my computer. Going through all my old stuff I actually found my old tape recorder and it still worked! (a Sony TCS-310 that could record in stereo! It cost me a bunch back then!) If you listen in some of the sound clips you can hear my camera as it's a good but noisy Nikon F2, and I had a motor drive on it to help crank out the slides. Anyway, enjoy the sound clips."

2-trains-n-hello.wav (2.5MB)

alco-horn-n-bell.wav (1.3MB)

camera-n-train.wav (2.5MB)

extra-hello-toots.wav (2.5MB)

FP7-idle-n-steam.wav (2.5MB)

freight-train-3.wav (2.5MB)

pass-train-1.wav (2.5MB)

pass-train-2.wav (2.5MB)

pass-train-10.wav (4.9MB)

pass-train-11.wav (2.2MB)

pass-train-13.wav (2.4MB)

single-tone-pass-train-horn.wav (824KB)